Tuesday, January 21, 2014

My trip to Kansas. Day Three

We walked through their amazing veterinarian suites, the intake areas, the dog area, the small animal area and the cat areas. They then took me outside and showed me Teddie's Memorial Garden.

There are rocks that were painted by one of the volunteers with the names of cats that went through the shelter that passed. Most of them passed while still with in the shelter, some after they were adopted but were still very special to the staff. It was a little odd to see it in the middle of December since it is designed to be full of flowers and very pretty.. when I saw it all the flowers were in hibernation.

After seeing this we walked across the campus to the Pet Memorial Services building. Separate from shelter they have services for the general population when their companion animal passes. They have a therapy kitty there to comfort those who need her..

Can you tell I was a little enamored with this beautiful kitty??
They offer cremation as well as burial at their cemetery.

We continued a tour of the campus and then went back through the building where we walked past their laundry staging area..

Just so you know, every shelter everywhere
needs volunteers to do laundry

and we stopped and chatted with a few volunteers and called it good. I was really quite parched at this point so we decided to stop at Panera for something to drink and a snack to plan on what we were going to do next.

We had a few hours to kill before we had plans to eat dinner at the Plaza. It was to be our fancy night out then we were going to drive through looking at the lights. Unfortunately this is where my trip spiraled right out of control with the news that Jack was at the emergency clinic. Instead of going shopping we ended back at Lisa's house while I completely and utterly lost it. I can not tell you how wonderful it was to be with two 'cat people' who totally 'got it' Since I had nearly no information for quite some time, and sitting around just thinking about the 'what ifs' was going to drive me insane, so Amy and Lisa distracted me. I will be forever grateful for that.

By the time I got all of the information to know that Jack was alive, that he was in good hands, and he was no longer blocked, dinner at the plaza wasn't going to work out, so we went to a local Mexican place with was absolutely delicious!

I stole some treats from Amy's treat cabinet trying to bribe Harvey Monster or Lowenstein into spending some time with me. They totally caught on to my little trick and they hung out and ate my treats and left.. I was so exhausted I fell asleep pretty quickly even with out the purr therapy I was hoping for.

Thanks for taking us on the tour with you, that memorial garden with the painted rocks looks like a beautiful tribute. What a great organization! I'm glad you were surrounded by good cat-people who could help when you needed it most.

We were so very glad you visited - and thrilled to show you every facet of Wayside, too! Miss Ellie is an amazingly calm and reassuring kitty for those who are grieving. And I'm so glad I have Ryker's resting place to visit whenever I wish....

What lovely people to distract and help you while you were so worried about Jack. I can see where that pretty kitty would be a comfort for people grieving. What a wonderful idea and what a wonderful kitty to be able to do that.

Wayside Waifs is a pretty amazing place! I know how horrible it was to hear about Jack's blockage issues long distance, and you were so fortunate to be with Amy and Lisa - they are awesome friends and great people.